Stiegler, Jim

ORAL HISTORY OF JAMES STIEGLER
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 13, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is December the 13th, 2011, and I am at the home of Mr. James Stiegler. And what are we, in Lenoir City, officially, or Knox County?
MR. STIEGLER: It's Loudoun County, but it has a Lenoir City post office.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, we're out here on the lake. It's beautiful out here. [Laughs] So, thanks for taking time to talk to us today. We certainly appreciate it. Why don't we start at the very beginning? Why don't you tell me where you were born and raised and something about your family?
MR. STIEGLER: I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, July 25th, 1934. My mother often reminded me that it was 106 degrees that day. That's one of the hottest years on record. I told her that it's a good thing she wasn't in St. Louis, because it was 108 there. But I grew up mainly in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and went to school there. I was the oldest of four children, two sisters and a brother. They all are deceased now, so I'm the only one left. I don't think there was anything very special about growing up. It seemed boring at the time, but I got through it, went onto Purdue University where I got a degree in metallurgical engineering.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your father do?
MR. STIEGLER: He worked with General Electric. He ended up, after I came down here, he moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, and then to Elmira, New York. So, he moved around a fair amount.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what year did you say you were born?
MR. STIEGLER: 1934.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1934. So that was kind of in the midst of the Depression. I mean, I guess, towards the end of it, I suppose, that ten-year Depression Era.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, but I really don't remember that much about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: We survived it, and then the Second World War started after that. That’s mainly when I began to remember things.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what year did you graduate high school?
MR. STIEGLER: 1952.
MR. MCDANIEL: '52. But you weren’t too old during the War to remember things.
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What are some of the things you remember about that?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I remember Pearl Harbor. It was a Sunday, and we had gone to a movie and came home and heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and really didn't know what to make of it, what was going to come of that. But within a few days, the country pretty well mobilized around fighting the Axis Powers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, you graduated high school and you went on to Purdue.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And metallurgical engineering?
MR. STIEGLER: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. What made you choose that?
MR. STIEGLER: I don't think I could give you a good reason.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: All of the other engineering disciplines had to take a course in heat power. I guess it was thermodynamics, really, and I didn't want to do that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Oh, I see.
MR. STIEGLER: And the metallurgical engineering seemed to be more directed at physical sciences, which I think if I were doing it, again, I would study physics.
MR. MCDANIEL: So I guess in high school, you were interested in science, obviously.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. I did, well, all the usual things. I also did a physical geography course there as well as the physics, chemistry, and the math courses.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. So you went to Purdue, and you finished there and got your bachelors, I imagine.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so you graduated, and what happened then?
MR. STIEGLER: I waited around for a couple a months until I got a security clearance, and then I moved down here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So how did you come to Oak Ridge? I mean, how did that come to be? Did someone come to the college to recruit or you just heard about opportunities?
MR. STIEGLER: There was a recruiter there who I talked with and got me interested in coming down here. At that time, nuclear energy was new. It looked like the direction of the future, and I thought this would be a good place to get involved in it, come down here for a few years, learn about, and then see what I could do with it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. But you came to Oak Ridge and -
MR. STIEGLER: I liked it and decided to stay here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what year did you come here?
MR. STIEGLER: 1956.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1956. So were you married at the time, or…?
MR. STIEGLER: No, no. I was fairly a long-time bachelor. I didn't get married till 1966.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. But so you came to Oak Ridge, and tell me about first coming to Oak Ridge. What do you remember about it? What were your impressions? Where did you stay? Who did you meet?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I stayed in Canton Hall, which doesn't exist anymore. It was one of those dormitories on the Turnpike. And nearly everybody else who was staying there was involved in construction work, and they were up every morning about 5:00, and I was near the showers and they'd all come trooping past there, wake me up early. So I didn't have any trouble getting to work on time.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] There you go.
MR. STIEGLER: At that time, it was very difficult to get apartments or housing. They wouldn't give any housing to single people. You had to have some kind of a roommate in order to get an apartment. And I had a friend who lived in Knoxville, who signed on as my roommate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: I got a small apartment on 109 Hunter Circle, and started going to school at night to UT, and with that and working, I kept pretty busy the first few years I was here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. So, what was your job when you first came here?
MR. STIEGLER: I was in the Solid-State Division, in the hot cell area that we worked with radioactive materials with manipulators and were examining the structure of them after they'd been radiated.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Was that a large group, a small group? Who was your supervisor?
MR. STIEGLER: Al Richt was the supervisor. I guess, there must have been a dozen of us or so in that group.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was at the Lab?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: And it was fairly routine work, and I ended up talking with Tom Noggle one day, who was setting up an electron microscope group there, and he ended up talking me into coming and working with him, so I learned electron microscopy and got involved in all sorts of things leading off of that. Worked with many different people.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was it like working at the Lab in, I guess, the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, it was a very exciting time. What impressed me was that people from all around the world wanted to come there and see what was going on, and so we met all kinds of very, what I considered, famous people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And -
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you recall any of them specifically?
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, most memorable, William Hume-Rothery, who I guess was one of the early metallurgists, an Englishman. He was very revered in the field. But all sorts of people, from Cambridge and Oxford and German labs. It was a pretty big experience for somebody like me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, I understand.
MR. STIEGLER: We took Alfred Seeger to an Oak Ridge High School football game one night. He was a German professor. And he seemed to enjoy that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] So, during that time in the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s, you were working at the Lab. You were single and going to school. Why were you going to school? To get a master’s degree? Is that what you were doing?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. I eventually got a PhD. I never got a master’s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. I see.
MR. STIEGLER: I got involved in the community activities there largely through the Jaycees, and I guess became a big supporter of Oak Ridge. From there, I got involved in the Arts Council and the Arts Festival, and a lot of other activities of that sort.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now I guess that continued on after you were married, but you did that when you were single and young?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. We actually timed our marriage for a quiet spot during the year in March, because we were - back at that time, we had an Oak Ridge Festival every June, and we'd put on an opera or a musical - Guys and Dolls one year, and Faust, the year that we got married, and had the Playhouse and the Art Center and the Orchestra all combined to do special things as part of that Festival. We lost a lot of money, and they finally ceased doing it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Who was at the Playhouse at that point? Was that Paul Ebert?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Paul was there. Did you do things at the Playhouse? I mean did you act on stage or anything?
MR. STIEGLER: No. I painted some scenery.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. But that was about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you were interested in arts in Oak Ridge and like you said, the Jaycees.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. Frank Choset was the Conductor of the Orchestra at the time, and we worked with him quite a bit in setting up the Festival and doing things for the musical community.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, was that something you were interested in as a young person, or is that something that you just kind of developed an interest in after you came to Oak Ridge and saw the opportunities?
MR. STIEGLER: I think I developed the interest after I came here. And it was through the Jaycees that I met a lot of people, and then built off of that to work with all of these other organizations.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So how did you meet your wife?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, that's an interesting story.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Okay.
MR. STIEGLER: People seemed to be upset that I was single, and they were always trying to do something. The Crossville Jaycettes one year wanted to take me on as a project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: But my wife and I knew a couple of women who were sister-in-laws. I knew one of them, and she knew the other, and they decided to get us together. And it took a long time to get - I don't know what all was going on, but we finally went to dinner and got to know each other, and there it went.
MR. MCDANIEL: There it went. Now, was your wife working on Oak Ridge?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, she was in the Biology Division in Mammalian Genetics Section working with mice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So, she was working with the mice. So, you were both working at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was fairly large. There were a lot of people at the Lab at that point, though, so it was not like you knew everybody that worked there I suppose, I mean at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, that's right. Usually, the ones that you worked with were the ones you knew, but you knew about a lot of the others because they were very well known.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly, exactly. So let's talk about your career a little bit. So you were working in the Electron Microscopy Division, I guess.
MR. STIEGLER: Group.
MR. MCDANIEL: Group. So, take me through your career and what are the things that you did?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I worked there for four or five years with Tom Noggle, learning the electron microscopy and getting involved with that sort of thing. And I was really, thinking at that time, about going somewhere else. I had sent out some applications, and a friend of mine, Jose Prislinger, told me that there was an opportunity in the Metals and Ceramics Division, that they wanted to start an Electron Microscopy Program. They had a microscope and were doing a little bit with it, but not very much. And I talked with them, and moved to that division in 1961 or so. And started what became a very large program there. We were working mainly on deformation of metals at first, but there was an exciting development in radiation damage. Voids were forming in materials that were radiated; they ended up looking like Swiss cheese.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. STIEGLER: And the best way to examine them was with the electron microscope, and we developed a very large program to study radiation effects in metals, largely, using the electron microscope, but other testing equipment as well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And we probably had 35 or 40 people in the group at one time.
MR. MCDANIEL: I imagine at that point, it wasn't too long. It was after really the birth if the nuclear industry, so there were a lot of things that were being learned about the effects of radiation, and I guess that was one of the big areas, wasn't it?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. Well, it was a problem that could conceivably prevented - if it couldn't be overcome, it could have made a nuclear energy or high-temperature materials in nuclear energy -
MR. MCDANIEL: Unusable.
MR. STIEGLER: - Unusable.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure, sure. Understand. Understand. So you stayed in that group for a while, and where did you go from there?
MR. STIEGLER: I became a Section Head, had several groups then involved in physical research, and later on became the Director of the Division, and finally an Associate Director of the Lab for Energy and Engineering Sciences.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? And when did you retire?
MR. STIEGLER: 1998.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1998. So tell me about some of the - if there were specific projects or specific achievements or specific challenges through the course of your career that made an impact on you that you still remember today.
MR. STIEGLER: One of the oddest ones was when I was in Solid-State Division. We took some isotopes that had very high thermal neutron cross sections, and radiated them and transmuted them. Gold was the one, in particular. We put it in a reactor and about 25 percent of the atoms changed to mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So that was -
MR. STIEGLER: Alvin Weinberg said we'd discovered the anti-philosopher stone, turning gold into mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: And for those who are watching, this was a common practice. I mean, that was something that the reactor was used for was to, I guess - I'm not a scientist so I may not use the right terminology, but to turn one element into something else. To turn something into something else once it was irradiated. Is that correct?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, although they did that in order to use the element that they produced.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. That's what I mean.
MR. STIEGLER: For medicine or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. STIEGLER: We were trying to see how it affected the crystal structure of the material when a large number of the atoms were transmuted.
MR. MCDANIEL: So the gold, 25 percent of it atoms were transmuted to mercury.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. And it looked like the moon, a lot of craters on the surface. We did it with tiny spheres that could be used for X-ray examination then, primarily. And it was a crystal structure that hadn't been seen before.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. STIEGLER: And has never been seen since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. STIEGLER: It's not of any particular interest, but it was a scientific curiosity. But that and the voids in the metals were the main things that I worked with, and tried to develop alloys that minimized the damage. And well, we did, I think identify ways of changing the composition and the structure to mitigate the damage.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, the point of that, as I understand it, is because the radiation would cause these voids in this material, you're trying to develop materials that that wouldn't happen to. Is that correct?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And you were able to do that. You were able to accomplish that.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, we were able to reduce -
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right, right. Exactly.
MR. STIEGLER: Yep. I think - and some of these steels that were developed for that have ended up having other applications, so, it's been a useful exercise.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I imagine that was very useful in the nuclear power industry.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, if they ever build fast reactors it would be, or fusion reactors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. STIEGLER: But so far, the industry just hasn't gone that way. The Department of Energy never carried very many projects through to completion.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right. They'd get to the ten-yard line and shut it down, wouldn't they?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what are some of the other things that you remember, that you recall, projects, people, events?
MR. STIEGLER: I don't know. I don't think I'd single anything out. That just was the center of my life for such a long time, that's the main thing that I remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. What about your life in Oak Ridge? You said you were involved in the Jaycees. Did you all end up buying a house or having children or…?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, we bought a house, and I remember the day that we moved there. There were boxes all over the place. It was kind of a mess and -
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that, and where was it located?
MR. STIEGLER: It was 1966, the fall, and all of a sudden Carlton McMullan, who was a City Manager, and Hank Stoner, showed up at the door. They'd been looking for me, and McMullan used the utility bills to find out where we had moved. And they wanted me to work on a project that ended up resulting in the Library and the Civic Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: I worked with young people. We had a number of people from the High School who were helping us, making phone calls and things like that to stir up interest in it. And there was a referendum that fall and it passed and we then ended up having a good Library and a nice Civic Center. And -
MR. MCDANIEL: The old Library was over near Jackson Square, wasn't it? That's right.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, it was one of those old wooden buildings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. I remember.
MR. STIEGLER: But we got that - another thing that, I got for Oak Ridge was a Sears store. I don't know whether they still have one or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: But we did a community survey and found out the one thing that people wanted most was a Sears store -
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And we contacted Sears and gave them the results of that survey and they ended up putting a small store in there, and then eventually expanded it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, that was put in the end of the old shopping center, wasn't it, the old L-shaped shopping center?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Down on the end, I imagine. So, as I recall, because I grew up in Kingston and came to Oak Ridge a lot, in my younger days. But I remember that. So, how long did that take once you did a survey and you contacted Sears? What, within a couple years they there? Do you recall?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, it was a fairly short time. And we also got the Library open on Sundays. I don't know whether it still is or not, but at that time, it closed and we found that there were a lot of people who wanted to go there on Sunday, and -
MR. MCDANIEL: I believe it is. I believe it's open in the afternoons.
MR. STIEGLER: So, my contributions to Oak Ridge - positive contributions are Sears and the Library on Sundays.
MR. MCDANIEL: People can read and go buy some stuff at Sears. So, now where did you say you bought your house? Where was it located?
MR. STIEGLER: It's in the western part of Oak Ridge, up on the ridge on Woodridge Lane, where it was located. It was very nice house. The architect, Milton Pate, who practiced in Oak Ridge, built it for himself and his family. He then ended up moving to Atlanta, and we bought the house from him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how long did you stay there?
MR. STIEGLER: Ten years. And we decided we wanted a little more land. We wanted to - I wanted to grow some things and do that sort of thing to get away from the pressures of work, and there was no land for sale in Oak Ridge. Nobody wanted to sell any back then, and so we bought a place in Loudon County, near Melton Hill Dam, and I got involved in gardening and taking care of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have children?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, they were two boys. They were born in one in March 15th, 1968, the other March 15th, 1971.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughs] My goodness. [Clears throat] Excuse me. Were they raised in Oak Ridge?
MR. STIEGLER: No. They moved out of Oak Ridge - or we moved out of Oak Ridge when the younger one was about five years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. I see. But I imagine you were still active in Oak Ridge, and you worked there and you kind of stayed active in the community somewhat, didn't you?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. Initially, we went back to Oak Ridge for everything, groceries, even. But - and it's interesting, our doctors are all in Oak Ridge. They've all retired and been replaced by somebody else, but we still go over there for dentist, doctors, and that sort of thing. So, I still have connections there in that sense.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, once you retired, did you consult or did you say, "It's over. I'm done"? Because I know a lot of people will consult and go back for several years after.
MR. STIEGLER: When I was in my mid-50s, Union Carbide was managing the Laboratory at that time. And they had a retirement planning course that they offered to employees and their spouses. We went to that, and the one point that they made was that you need to prepare for retirement. You can't just decide to do something after you retire. You've got to look ahead and develop the interest and the connections and that sort of thing. And so we - about that time, I met a retired Methodist preacher who was active in Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army. And when I retired, I retired one Friday, and the next Tuesday, actually - it rained on Monday, I remember - I went out to work for Habitat for Humanity. We were building a house and I tipped over a wheelbarrow full of concrete.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: But I started with Habitat there and did that for quite a few years. And then I followed Reverend Pfeiffer and took over the Salvation Army in Loudon County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And did that for several years, as well. And I got involved with the Knoxville Opera Guild. I was Secretary and Vice President of that, and met a whole different group of people doing that sort of thing
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. So - well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Any - now's the time. This is a good time. Any stories you have to - you want to tell that might be -?
MR. STIEGLER: I'm not going to tell anything that's incriminating.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: We've had really I think a great life since retirement. We had these activities that I learned an awful lot from Habitat and Salvation Army about the problems that many, many people in the community have, and how there is struggling to get by. That was just a huge lesson and makes me appreciate the organizations that help people. But on the personal side, we've managed to do a lot of traveling. We went to Galapagos Islands and Africa, Tanzania, the upper Amazon, sort of wildlife adventures. We did art history and architect seminars, one in Rome, another one in Florence.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. STIEGLER: We've done a number of river cruises. We did one on the Mississippi that had a Civil War theme, and one on the Columbia River that was Lewis and Clark.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And -
MR. MCDANIEL: Were those fun? Because I've been thinking about maybe doing something like that.
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: I think next year, there will be, again, boats operating on the Mississippi, that Delta Queen ended up going bankrupt, and I think Chattanooga has it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: They turned it into a hotel. But somebody's building a new riverboat to go on the Mississippi. But most of them have themes. Ours, as I said, was Civil War, but they may have 1950’s music or something like that, as a theme. So, you can find something that interests you that way.
MR. MCDANIEL: You mentioned that once you retired and worked with Habitat and Salvation Army, it really made you more aware of the needs in our community. A lot of people, I think I have discovered that living and working in Oak Ridge, a lot of people seem to be maybe a little isolated from that, because of Oak Ridge's history as a government town of being provided for of the same kind of people that - I mean, the kind of people that live in Oak Ridge, the influx of educated international-type folks. Did you find that at all when you worked and lived in Oak Ridge? You were kind of guarded from some of the region and the problems in the region?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. I think that that's right, and the city was criticized for ignoring a lot of the problems in the area. The Jewish women put on a program one year, “Spotlight on Poverty,” where they were trying to get people aware of what was going on in the area around us. But we, at least in the activities I was involved in, never really addressed those problems. But when I came here to Loudon County, I did get very close to that, and it's just really heartbreaking to see what some people have to go through.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything else you want to say?
MR. STIEGLER: It's been a great ride. I'm happy I came here. If I were starting over, I probably wouldn't take the course I did, and I would have missed out on a lot. But this is a wonderful place to live. It combines so many things, the outdoor living, and the lakes. I think we have a pretty good cultural scene here, a lot of recreation opportunities, and then we can travel and experience some of the other things that we don't have here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: So, yes, I'm glad that I came here, and I made the right decision, perhaps for the wrong reason, but it worked out well.
MR. MCDANIEL: It worked out well. That's great. And we can end there, but I have one more question for you. I meant to ask this a while ago. You came as a young man and right out of college, and as a worker bee, albeit a knowledgeable, professional worker bee. And you kind of over, your career slowly rose into more of an administrative management positions. Which of those did you enjoy better? And what were some of the advantages and disadvantages of both of those extremes, specifically at the Lab or in your area -?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, I had really gotten, oh, I wouldn't say burned out, but I was disillusioned with what I was doing there as a group leader. I had that very large group, and was thinking that I would like to go back and be an individual researcher again and get rid of that. But about that time, the Lab started a career-planning program, and I got in on one of the early sessions of it. I think they considered me one of their successes because as a result of that, I learned that what I really preferred doing was the - oh, what I would say would be like conducting an orchestra, getting a large group of people to work together to produce something. They had an interesting patterning program where you looked at events from your life doing as we are now, recording it on video, and then people would sit down and see if they could see patterns in what it was that - in different stages of your life appeal to you. And I realized that it wasn't going back and being an individual researcher, but it was putting things together and making things work. And we did that then at the Lab. I had directed my career in that direction, but it's what we did in the community as well, later with Salvation Army, and Habitat. I was chair in both of those organizations, and the Opera Guild. They were kinds of things where you were putting things together to make a whole that was bigger than the sum of its parts. So, I learned that and completely changed my career objectives.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was kind of a real turning point for you then, wasn't it?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean as far as it opened your eyes and you probably may not have had that opportunity had that not been there, that the Lab was offering kind of help you analyze what you were good at and enjoyed.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. The career planning and the retirement planning were two things that they did very well. Many that they didn't do so well, but those things more than made up for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And I don't know whether they do any of those anymore or not, but if they don't, they're missing an opportunity really to make a difference in people's lives.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate it.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I'm happy that you gave me the opportunity to think about some of these things, again, because I've gotten away from it and there are some good memories. We did some good things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. All right. Well, very good. Thank you.
[End of Interview]

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

ORAL HISTORY OF JAMES STIEGLER
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 13, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is December the 13th, 2011, and I am at the home of Mr. James Stiegler. And what are we, in Lenoir City, officially, or Knox County?
MR. STIEGLER: It's Loudoun County, but it has a Lenoir City post office.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, we're out here on the lake. It's beautiful out here. [Laughs] So, thanks for taking time to talk to us today. We certainly appreciate it. Why don't we start at the very beginning? Why don't you tell me where you were born and raised and something about your family?
MR. STIEGLER: I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, July 25th, 1934. My mother often reminded me that it was 106 degrees that day. That's one of the hottest years on record. I told her that it's a good thing she wasn't in St. Louis, because it was 108 there. But I grew up mainly in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and went to school there. I was the oldest of four children, two sisters and a brother. They all are deceased now, so I'm the only one left. I don't think there was anything very special about growing up. It seemed boring at the time, but I got through it, went onto Purdue University where I got a degree in metallurgical engineering.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your father do?
MR. STIEGLER: He worked with General Electric. He ended up, after I came down here, he moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, and then to Elmira, New York. So, he moved around a fair amount.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what year did you say you were born?
MR. STIEGLER: 1934.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1934. So that was kind of in the midst of the Depression. I mean, I guess, towards the end of it, I suppose, that ten-year Depression Era.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, but I really don't remember that much about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: We survived it, and then the Second World War started after that. That’s mainly when I began to remember things.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what year did you graduate high school?
MR. STIEGLER: 1952.
MR. MCDANIEL: '52. But you weren’t too old during the War to remember things.
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: What are some of the things you remember about that?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I remember Pearl Harbor. It was a Sunday, and we had gone to a movie and came home and heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and really didn't know what to make of it, what was going to come of that. But within a few days, the country pretty well mobilized around fighting the Axis Powers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, you graduated high school and you went on to Purdue.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And metallurgical engineering?
MR. STIEGLER: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. What made you choose that?
MR. STIEGLER: I don't think I could give you a good reason.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: All of the other engineering disciplines had to take a course in heat power. I guess it was thermodynamics, really, and I didn't want to do that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Oh, I see.
MR. STIEGLER: And the metallurgical engineering seemed to be more directed at physical sciences, which I think if I were doing it, again, I would study physics.
MR. MCDANIEL: So I guess in high school, you were interested in science, obviously.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. I did, well, all the usual things. I also did a physical geography course there as well as the physics, chemistry, and the math courses.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. So you went to Purdue, and you finished there and got your bachelors, I imagine.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And so you graduated, and what happened then?
MR. STIEGLER: I waited around for a couple a months until I got a security clearance, and then I moved down here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So how did you come to Oak Ridge? I mean, how did that come to be? Did someone come to the college to recruit or you just heard about opportunities?
MR. STIEGLER: There was a recruiter there who I talked with and got me interested in coming down here. At that time, nuclear energy was new. It looked like the direction of the future, and I thought this would be a good place to get involved in it, come down here for a few years, learn about, and then see what I could do with it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. But you came to Oak Ridge and -
MR. STIEGLER: I liked it and decided to stay here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what year did you come here?
MR. STIEGLER: 1956.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1956. So were you married at the time, or…?
MR. STIEGLER: No, no. I was fairly a long-time bachelor. I didn't get married till 1966.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. But so you came to Oak Ridge, and tell me about first coming to Oak Ridge. What do you remember about it? What were your impressions? Where did you stay? Who did you meet?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I stayed in Canton Hall, which doesn't exist anymore. It was one of those dormitories on the Turnpike. And nearly everybody else who was staying there was involved in construction work, and they were up every morning about 5:00, and I was near the showers and they'd all come trooping past there, wake me up early. So I didn't have any trouble getting to work on time.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] There you go.
MR. STIEGLER: At that time, it was very difficult to get apartments or housing. They wouldn't give any housing to single people. You had to have some kind of a roommate in order to get an apartment. And I had a friend who lived in Knoxville, who signed on as my roommate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: I got a small apartment on 109 Hunter Circle, and started going to school at night to UT, and with that and working, I kept pretty busy the first few years I was here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. So, what was your job when you first came here?
MR. STIEGLER: I was in the Solid-State Division, in the hot cell area that we worked with radioactive materials with manipulators and were examining the structure of them after they'd been radiated.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Was that a large group, a small group? Who was your supervisor?
MR. STIEGLER: Al Richt was the supervisor. I guess, there must have been a dozen of us or so in that group.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was at the Lab?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: And it was fairly routine work, and I ended up talking with Tom Noggle one day, who was setting up an electron microscope group there, and he ended up talking me into coming and working with him, so I learned electron microscopy and got involved in all sorts of things leading off of that. Worked with many different people.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was it like working at the Lab in, I guess, the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, it was a very exciting time. What impressed me was that people from all around the world wanted to come there and see what was going on, and so we met all kinds of very, what I considered, famous people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And -
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you recall any of them specifically?
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, most memorable, William Hume-Rothery, who I guess was one of the early metallurgists, an Englishman. He was very revered in the field. But all sorts of people, from Cambridge and Oxford and German labs. It was a pretty big experience for somebody like me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, I understand.
MR. STIEGLER: We took Alfred Seeger to an Oak Ridge High School football game one night. He was a German professor. And he seemed to enjoy that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] So, during that time in the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s, you were working at the Lab. You were single and going to school. Why were you going to school? To get a master’s degree? Is that what you were doing?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. I eventually got a PhD. I never got a master’s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. I see.
MR. STIEGLER: I got involved in the community activities there largely through the Jaycees, and I guess became a big supporter of Oak Ridge. From there, I got involved in the Arts Council and the Arts Festival, and a lot of other activities of that sort.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now I guess that continued on after you were married, but you did that when you were single and young?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. We actually timed our marriage for a quiet spot during the year in March, because we were - back at that time, we had an Oak Ridge Festival every June, and we'd put on an opera or a musical - Guys and Dolls one year, and Faust, the year that we got married, and had the Playhouse and the Art Center and the Orchestra all combined to do special things as part of that Festival. We lost a lot of money, and they finally ceased doing it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Who was at the Playhouse at that point? Was that Paul Ebert?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Paul was there. Did you do things at the Playhouse? I mean did you act on stage or anything?
MR. STIEGLER: No. I painted some scenery.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. But that was about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you were interested in arts in Oak Ridge and like you said, the Jaycees.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. Frank Choset was the Conductor of the Orchestra at the time, and we worked with him quite a bit in setting up the Festival and doing things for the musical community.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, was that something you were interested in as a young person, or is that something that you just kind of developed an interest in after you came to Oak Ridge and saw the opportunities?
MR. STIEGLER: I think I developed the interest after I came here. And it was through the Jaycees that I met a lot of people, and then built off of that to work with all of these other organizations.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So how did you meet your wife?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, that's an interesting story.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Okay.
MR. STIEGLER: People seemed to be upset that I was single, and they were always trying to do something. The Crossville Jaycettes one year wanted to take me on as a project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh. [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: But my wife and I knew a couple of women who were sister-in-laws. I knew one of them, and she knew the other, and they decided to get us together. And it took a long time to get - I don't know what all was going on, but we finally went to dinner and got to know each other, and there it went.
MR. MCDANIEL: There it went. Now, was your wife working on Oak Ridge?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, she was in the Biology Division in Mammalian Genetics Section working with mice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So, she was working with the mice. So, you were both working at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was fairly large. There were a lot of people at the Lab at that point, though, so it was not like you knew everybody that worked there I suppose, I mean at the Lab.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, that's right. Usually, the ones that you worked with were the ones you knew, but you knew about a lot of the others because they were very well known.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Exactly, exactly. So let's talk about your career a little bit. So you were working in the Electron Microscopy Division, I guess.
MR. STIEGLER: Group.
MR. MCDANIEL: Group. So, take me through your career and what are the things that you did?
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I worked there for four or five years with Tom Noggle, learning the electron microscopy and getting involved with that sort of thing. And I was really, thinking at that time, about going somewhere else. I had sent out some applications, and a friend of mine, Jose Prislinger, told me that there was an opportunity in the Metals and Ceramics Division, that they wanted to start an Electron Microscopy Program. They had a microscope and were doing a little bit with it, but not very much. And I talked with them, and moved to that division in 1961 or so. And started what became a very large program there. We were working mainly on deformation of metals at first, but there was an exciting development in radiation damage. Voids were forming in materials that were radiated; they ended up looking like Swiss cheese.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. STIEGLER: And the best way to examine them was with the electron microscope, and we developed a very large program to study radiation effects in metals, largely, using the electron microscope, but other testing equipment as well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And we probably had 35 or 40 people in the group at one time.
MR. MCDANIEL: I imagine at that point, it wasn't too long. It was after really the birth if the nuclear industry, so there were a lot of things that were being learned about the effects of radiation, and I guess that was one of the big areas, wasn't it?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. Well, it was a problem that could conceivably prevented - if it couldn't be overcome, it could have made a nuclear energy or high-temperature materials in nuclear energy -
MR. MCDANIEL: Unusable.
MR. STIEGLER: - Unusable.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, sure, sure. Understand. Understand. So you stayed in that group for a while, and where did you go from there?
MR. STIEGLER: I became a Section Head, had several groups then involved in physical research, and later on became the Director of the Division, and finally an Associate Director of the Lab for Energy and Engineering Sciences.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? And when did you retire?
MR. STIEGLER: 1998.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1998. So tell me about some of the - if there were specific projects or specific achievements or specific challenges through the course of your career that made an impact on you that you still remember today.
MR. STIEGLER: One of the oddest ones was when I was in Solid-State Division. We took some isotopes that had very high thermal neutron cross sections, and radiated them and transmuted them. Gold was the one, in particular. We put it in a reactor and about 25 percent of the atoms changed to mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So that was -
MR. STIEGLER: Alvin Weinberg said we'd discovered the anti-philosopher stone, turning gold into mercury.
MR. MCDANIEL: And for those who are watching, this was a common practice. I mean, that was something that the reactor was used for was to, I guess - I'm not a scientist so I may not use the right terminology, but to turn one element into something else. To turn something into something else once it was irradiated. Is that correct?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, although they did that in order to use the element that they produced.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. That's what I mean.
MR. STIEGLER: For medicine or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. STIEGLER: We were trying to see how it affected the crystal structure of the material when a large number of the atoms were transmuted.
MR. MCDANIEL: So the gold, 25 percent of it atoms were transmuted to mercury.
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. And it looked like the moon, a lot of craters on the surface. We did it with tiny spheres that could be used for X-ray examination then, primarily. And it was a crystal structure that hadn't been seen before.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. STIEGLER: And has never been seen since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. STIEGLER: It's not of any particular interest, but it was a scientific curiosity. But that and the voids in the metals were the main things that I worked with, and tried to develop alloys that minimized the damage. And well, we did, I think identify ways of changing the composition and the structure to mitigate the damage.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, the point of that, as I understand it, is because the radiation would cause these voids in this material, you're trying to develop materials that that wouldn't happen to. Is that correct?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. And you were able to do that. You were able to accomplish that.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, we were able to reduce -
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right, right. Exactly.
MR. STIEGLER: Yep. I think - and some of these steels that were developed for that have ended up having other applications, so, it's been a useful exercise.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I imagine that was very useful in the nuclear power industry.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, if they ever build fast reactors it would be, or fusion reactors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. STIEGLER: But so far, the industry just hasn't gone that way. The Department of Energy never carried very many projects through to completion.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Right. They'd get to the ten-yard line and shut it down, wouldn't they?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what are some of the other things that you remember, that you recall, projects, people, events?
MR. STIEGLER: I don't know. I don't think I'd single anything out. That just was the center of my life for such a long time, that's the main thing that I remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. What about your life in Oak Ridge? You said you were involved in the Jaycees. Did you all end up buying a house or having children or…?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, we bought a house, and I remember the day that we moved there. There were boxes all over the place. It was kind of a mess and -
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that, and where was it located?
MR. STIEGLER: It was 1966, the fall, and all of a sudden Carlton McMullan, who was a City Manager, and Hank Stoner, showed up at the door. They'd been looking for me, and McMullan used the utility bills to find out where we had moved. And they wanted me to work on a project that ended up resulting in the Library and the Civic Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: I worked with young people. We had a number of people from the High School who were helping us, making phone calls and things like that to stir up interest in it. And there was a referendum that fall and it passed and we then ended up having a good Library and a nice Civic Center. And -
MR. MCDANIEL: The old Library was over near Jackson Square, wasn't it? That's right.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, it was one of those old wooden buildings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. I remember.
MR. STIEGLER: But we got that - another thing that, I got for Oak Ridge was a Sears store. I don't know whether they still have one or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: But we did a community survey and found out the one thing that people wanted most was a Sears store -
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And we contacted Sears and gave them the results of that survey and they ended up putting a small store in there, and then eventually expanded it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, that was put in the end of the old shopping center, wasn't it, the old L-shaped shopping center?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Down on the end, I imagine. So, as I recall, because I grew up in Kingston and came to Oak Ridge a lot, in my younger days. But I remember that. So, how long did that take once you did a survey and you contacted Sears? What, within a couple years they there? Do you recall?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, it was a fairly short time. And we also got the Library open on Sundays. I don't know whether it still is or not, but at that time, it closed and we found that there were a lot of people who wanted to go there on Sunday, and -
MR. MCDANIEL: I believe it is. I believe it's open in the afternoons.
MR. STIEGLER: So, my contributions to Oak Ridge - positive contributions are Sears and the Library on Sundays.
MR. MCDANIEL: People can read and go buy some stuff at Sears. So, now where did you say you bought your house? Where was it located?
MR. STIEGLER: It's in the western part of Oak Ridge, up on the ridge on Woodridge Lane, where it was located. It was very nice house. The architect, Milton Pate, who practiced in Oak Ridge, built it for himself and his family. He then ended up moving to Atlanta, and we bought the house from him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how long did you stay there?
MR. STIEGLER: Ten years. And we decided we wanted a little more land. We wanted to - I wanted to grow some things and do that sort of thing to get away from the pressures of work, and there was no land for sale in Oak Ridge. Nobody wanted to sell any back then, and so we bought a place in Loudon County, near Melton Hill Dam, and I got involved in gardening and taking care of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have children?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes, they were two boys. They were born in one in March 15th, 1968, the other March 15th, 1971.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughs] My goodness. [Clears throat] Excuse me. Were they raised in Oak Ridge?
MR. STIEGLER: No. They moved out of Oak Ridge - or we moved out of Oak Ridge when the younger one was about five years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see. I see. But I imagine you were still active in Oak Ridge, and you worked there and you kind of stayed active in the community somewhat, didn't you?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes. Initially, we went back to Oak Ridge for everything, groceries, even. But - and it's interesting, our doctors are all in Oak Ridge. They've all retired and been replaced by somebody else, but we still go over there for dentist, doctors, and that sort of thing. So, I still have connections there in that sense.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So, once you retired, did you consult or did you say, "It's over. I'm done"? Because I know a lot of people will consult and go back for several years after.
MR. STIEGLER: When I was in my mid-50s, Union Carbide was managing the Laboratory at that time. And they had a retirement planning course that they offered to employees and their spouses. We went to that, and the one point that they made was that you need to prepare for retirement. You can't just decide to do something after you retire. You've got to look ahead and develop the interest and the connections and that sort of thing. And so we - about that time, I met a retired Methodist preacher who was active in Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army. And when I retired, I retired one Friday, and the next Tuesday, actually - it rained on Monday, I remember - I went out to work for Habitat for Humanity. We were building a house and I tipped over a wheelbarrow full of concrete.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: But I started with Habitat there and did that for quite a few years. And then I followed Reverend Pfeiffer and took over the Salvation Army in Loudon County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: And did that for several years, as well. And I got involved with the Knoxville Opera Guild. I was Secretary and Vice President of that, and met a whole different group of people doing that sort of thing
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. So - well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Any - now's the time. This is a good time. Any stories you have to - you want to tell that might be -?
MR. STIEGLER: I'm not going to tell anything that's incriminating.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: We've had really I think a great life since retirement. We had these activities that I learned an awful lot from Habitat and Salvation Army about the problems that many, many people in the community have, and how there is struggling to get by. That was just a huge lesson and makes me appreciate the organizations that help people. But on the personal side, we've managed to do a lot of traveling. We went to Galapagos Islands and Africa, Tanzania, the upper Amazon, sort of wildlife adventures. We did art history and architect seminars, one in Rome, another one in Florence.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. STIEGLER: We've done a number of river cruises. We did one on the Mississippi that had a Civil War theme, and one on the Columbia River that was Lewis and Clark.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And -
MR. MCDANIEL: Were those fun? Because I've been thinking about maybe doing something like that.
MR. STIEGLER: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. STIEGLER: I think next year, there will be, again, boats operating on the Mississippi, that Delta Queen ended up going bankrupt, and I think Chattanooga has it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. STIEGLER: They turned it into a hotel. But somebody's building a new riverboat to go on the Mississippi. But most of them have themes. Ours, as I said, was Civil War, but they may have 1950’s music or something like that, as a theme. So, you can find something that interests you that way.
MR. MCDANIEL: You mentioned that once you retired and worked with Habitat and Salvation Army, it really made you more aware of the needs in our community. A lot of people, I think I have discovered that living and working in Oak Ridge, a lot of people seem to be maybe a little isolated from that, because of Oak Ridge's history as a government town of being provided for of the same kind of people that - I mean, the kind of people that live in Oak Ridge, the influx of educated international-type folks. Did you find that at all when you worked and lived in Oak Ridge? You were kind of guarded from some of the region and the problems in the region?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. I think that that's right, and the city was criticized for ignoring a lot of the problems in the area. The Jewish women put on a program one year, “Spotlight on Poverty,” where they were trying to get people aware of what was going on in the area around us. But we, at least in the activities I was involved in, never really addressed those problems. But when I came here to Loudon County, I did get very close to that, and it's just really heartbreaking to see what some people have to go through.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything else you want to say?
MR. STIEGLER: It's been a great ride. I'm happy I came here. If I were starting over, I probably wouldn't take the course I did, and I would have missed out on a lot. But this is a wonderful place to live. It combines so many things, the outdoor living, and the lakes. I think we have a pretty good cultural scene here, a lot of recreation opportunities, and then we can travel and experience some of the other things that we don't have here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. STIEGLER: So, yes, I'm glad that I came here, and I made the right decision, perhaps for the wrong reason, but it worked out well.
MR. MCDANIEL: It worked out well. That's great. And we can end there, but I have one more question for you. I meant to ask this a while ago. You came as a young man and right out of college, and as a worker bee, albeit a knowledgeable, professional worker bee. And you kind of over, your career slowly rose into more of an administrative management positions. Which of those did you enjoy better? And what were some of the advantages and disadvantages of both of those extremes, specifically at the Lab or in your area -?
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah, I had really gotten, oh, I wouldn't say burned out, but I was disillusioned with what I was doing there as a group leader. I had that very large group, and was thinking that I would like to go back and be an individual researcher again and get rid of that. But about that time, the Lab started a career-planning program, and I got in on one of the early sessions of it. I think they considered me one of their successes because as a result of that, I learned that what I really preferred doing was the - oh, what I would say would be like conducting an orchestra, getting a large group of people to work together to produce something. They had an interesting patterning program where you looked at events from your life doing as we are now, recording it on video, and then people would sit down and see if they could see patterns in what it was that - in different stages of your life appeal to you. And I realized that it wasn't going back and being an individual researcher, but it was putting things together and making things work. And we did that then at the Lab. I had directed my career in that direction, but it's what we did in the community as well, later with Salvation Army, and Habitat. I was chair in both of those organizations, and the Opera Guild. They were kinds of things where you were putting things together to make a whole that was bigger than the sum of its parts. So, I learned that and completely changed my career objectives.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was kind of a real turning point for you then, wasn't it?
MR. STIEGLER: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean as far as it opened your eyes and you probably may not have had that opportunity had that not been there, that the Lab was offering kind of help you analyze what you were good at and enjoyed.
MR. STIEGLER: Yeah. The career planning and the retirement planning were two things that they did very well. Many that they didn't do so well, but those things more than made up for it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. STIEGLER: And I don't know whether they do any of those anymore or not, but if they don't, they're missing an opportunity really to make a difference in people's lives.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate it.
MR. STIEGLER: Well, I'm happy that you gave me the opportunity to think about some of these things, again, because I've gotten away from it and there are some good memories. We did some good things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. All right. Well, very good. Thank you.
[End of Interview]